Comparison and determination of the professional understandings of science teacher candidates and current science teachers

Science teaching has a very important place in shaping future generations. The development, progress and productivity of a country is possible by instilling this understanding in future generations. In this context, the biggest responsibility falls on teachers. One of the important touches on future generations is the teacher whom he sees as a role model. In this context, the aim of the research is to comparatively determine the professional understanding of science teacher candidates when choosing the profession and the professional understanding of current science teachers and to develop some suggestions in this context. In this research, a descriptive survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The research was conducted in the 2023-2024 academic year with 95 teacher candidates studying in science education at the education faculties of three different universities and 85 science teachers working in different public secondary schools in three provinces. The research population consists of science teacher candidates studying at state universities in Turkey and current science teachers. Since the universe is very large, sampling was used. Considering the accessibility of the research, easily accessible sampling was chosen. To be used in this research, an attitude scale was developed by the researcher, aiming to reveal the professional understanding of science teacher candidates and current science teachers. While developing the attitude scale; "1" Never, "2" Undecided, "3" Partially, "4" Generally, a 5-point Likert type rating was made, such as "5" Always. The scale consists of two parts. In the first part, there are features such as gender, grade level, father's profession, mother's profession, region of residence, which university he studied at, and what characteristics and qualifications science teachers should have. In the second part of the scale, 30 items aiming to reveal the professional understanding of current science teachers and science teacher candidates are included. An attempt was made to create an item pool for the attitude scale by analyzing it in detail in line with the opinions received from 10 teachers. Expert opinion was sought for the attitude scale. The scale was finalized by consulting the opinions of two faculty members who have doctorates in science education and working at two different state universities, and a teacher who is currently teaching at a public school and is also a doctoral student. In order to test the validity and reliability of the scale, a preliminary application was made to 50 teacher candidates. As a result of the pre-test, the reliability Cronbach Alpha value was found to be 0.85. For validity, factor analysis was deemed appropriate. According to the KMO and Bartlett's test analysis results, the factor loadings of the items in the scale were above 40% and therefore suitable for factorization. Additionally, data were analyzed using arithmetic mean, frequency, percentage (%), factor loadings, t-test and ANOVA statistical procedures. Frequency and percentage (%) values were calculated while evaluating the gender of the teachers and teacher candidates participating in the research, their parents' professions, the university they attended, the region they resided in, and whether they had a teacher in their family. Science teacher candidates and current science teachers generally responded positively to the 30 items in the scale prepared by the researcher. As a result, when we look at the variables in the scale; There are differences in the professional understanding of current science teachers and science teacher candidates in terms of gender, reasons for choosing this department, appointment status and grade levels. The professional understanding of current teachers and teacher candidates does not change in terms of the university they study at, whether there are science teachers around, their dream job, father's profession, number of siblings and the region they reside. In terms of gender, women's understanding of professions was more positive than men. Again, when the professional understandings of current teachers and first and fourth year teacher candidates are compared; Compared to first-year teacher candidates, fourth-year teacher candidates' understanding of the profession was closer to that of the current teachers.